When Hackers Attack

Have you ever had your blog compromised? One of the worst things that can happen to you as a blogger is when your site gets invested with malware, virus’, etc…Well if you have experienced this, currently going through this, or want more information on how you can prevent this, then this post is for you…

Life is a series of natural spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like ~ Lao Tzu

One of the most dreadful, agonizing things that can happen to you as a blogger is when your site gets compromised. It can take minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months to figure out what you need to do in order to get rid of the problem.

Well I went through the trouble of trying to figure out what to do to find a solution. But one thing is for sure, I’m glad that DeeAnn Wallace helped me resolved this issue. So I’m honored to have her as my first guest blogger to explain what you can do if you ever run into this issue. So without further adieu I bring you DeeAnn!

Before I start I’d like to take this time to thank Sherman for inviting me to write this post. I feel very honored as it is the first guest post Sherman has had on his blog.

Helping Each Other Through Networking

Sherman and I met through our blogs. We have commented on each others posts for sometime now.

One day I went to Shermanís blog (this blog) in order to read and comment on his latest post. To my surprise I found that my virus software on my computer would not allow me to comment on Sherman’s site because his site had a virus.

This is what I saw when I came to Shermanís blog.

This was the first time I realized that not only could our computers get viruses but our blogs could get viruses as well.

not only can our computers get viruses but our blogs can also get viruses

This was the start of a long conversation between Sherman and me.

I set out to help Sherman figure out how to get rid of the virus that was on his blog.

It was through networking that Sherman and I were able to get to know each other better and bounce ideas back and forth about the solution to his problem.

Viruses and Hackers Are Everywhere

Over the last couple of years I have learned that viruses and hackers are everywhere. There seems to be too many people that have to much time on their hands and their only goal is to destroy something that belongs to someone else.

to many people that have to much time on their hands

Over the last couple of years I have learned a lot about hackers and security. When we are using the internet there are several areas where we need to be aware of security issues.

Blog Security

Preventative

This is a topic that I know a lot about. My product ñ Blog Security Defender ñ which will launch soon goes into great detail on how to protect your blog using preventative steps.

In order to get more information on my product Blog Security Defender click the following links.

Sales Page

Get Notified When Blog Security Defender Launches

Become An Affiliate and Help Me Promote My Product

I cover many more things in my product but here are a few basic measures to take in order to prevent hackers from having access.

Strong Passwords

It is important to have strong passwords. There are a number of password generators available online. Here is one that looks like it does a good job. Strong Password Generator

Having a strong password always helps to stop hackers from accessing your blog.

User Name

Do Not Use ìAdminî As Your User Name

This is a huge mistake. Hackers are aware that many of the install programs for WordPress use ìadminî as the default user name. If you leave your user name as ìadminî you have just won half the battle for the hackers.

Backup Your Blog

Backing up your blog is essential in order to protect your blog. Your blog should be backed up on a daily basis. This way if you do get hacked you will have a current backup and can easily restore your blog. It is wise to keep a month or two of backups as sometimes it is necessary to go back a ways to get a clean backup.

You need to back up both the files and the database. This is a two part process but is necessary to get the entire blog backed up.

There are also plugins out there that will backup your blog. Just be sure you are aware of what is being backed up and what is not being backup up.

Update

Keep WordPress, your theme and your plugins up to date. The main reason for WordPress updates is to close up holes in the code where hackers can get in and attack your blog. Code is never perfect and hackers are working as hard to break in as WordPress is to keep them out.

If you do these few things you are well on your way to protecting your blog.

Be watching for my product as I will walk you though many more steps that will protect your blog even more.

After A Blog Is Hacked Or Gets A Virus

This is what happened to Shermanís blog. My blog post Virus and Phishing Warnings on Blogs resulted from the research I did trying to help Sherman get rid of the viruses on his blog.

We discovered after I had written this post that Google Webmaster Tools did not find the viruses that existed on Shermanís Blog.

This lead to more research which eventually solved the problem and Shermanís Blog (this blog) is now virus free.

Find Out If Your Blog Has Been Hacked

CopyScape is a free tool (there is also a paid version) that tells you if your content has been copied and exists on another blog. This is what happened to me. All of my content was copied but not only copied they had managed to make it so whenever I posted something to my blog the same thing posted to theirs. My content was their content. This tool will help you become aware of whether this is happening to you.

Google Webmaster Tools has an area where you can check your blog for viruses. If you go to my post Virus and Phishing Warnings on Blogs I show you how to use this tool.

Sucuri is another tool that has a free part to it. You can scan your website to see if your blog is clean. If it is not clean Sucuri will tell you your site has been hacked and what is wrong with it. If the blog is infected with viruses Sucuri will list the viruses.

Sucuri was the tool that we finally used to figure out that this blog had been hacked and viruses were on it.

I think the hardest part of getting rid of a virus anywhere is to identify it is actually there and what virus it is.

Cleaning Your Blog

A great thing about Sucuri is they actually have a paid part of their product where you can pay them to clean up your site and monitor it for a year. This is what Sherman ended up doing. It is a great way to clean up a blog that is infected with a virus with the least headache and for a very reasonable price.

If you would rather do it yourself, here are a few recourses that might help out:

WordPress forum where there are a lot of ideas on how to handle viruses.

Smackdown looks like a good resource for cleaning a WordPress site.

This is a pretty simple rundown on security issues but, sometimes all it takes to keep a computer or blog safe is know a few good preventative measures.

Over To You

Have you ever had something that I talked about in this post happen to you? Please leave a comment and let us all know what happened and how you solved your problem.

If you have never had anything like this happen to you please share as well.

We look forward to your comment.

Share

If you find this post interesting or useful could you please share it with your friends. Thank you.

Dee Ann Rice Dee Ann Rice loves working online and blogging. This mother of five loves to learn and then share that knowledge with others. She has traveled and lived all over the world and has friends in all of those locations. She loves meeting new people and sharing her experiences all while hearing about theirs. She really believes that by sharing we all make it where we want to be faster.

Great to see you here at Sherman’s blog and so glad you were there to help him out.

You know you’ve saved me many times. I’m so thankful that you know a lot about computers and security issues. Had it not been for you, my blog wouldn’t be as secure as it is today. Knock on wood, it’s never been compromised so I think that alone says a LOT.

I’m so sorry this happened to Sherman but I also know that you stuck with him to help him figure this out. You’ve introduced some of these sites to me too and I listen when you recommend something.

It’s never fun when our computer or blogs are comprised but thank goodness we have great blogging friends that can come to our rescue.

I’m really looking forward to the release of your new product. It’s a lot of the information that has helped my blog become so secure and I know everyone is going to be eager to get their hands on it.

Great share Dee Ann and again, thanks for helping Sherman with this problem. I learned through this too that blogs can be infected just like computers. No one ever wants that happening.

I was more than glad to help Sherman out. I didn’t really do much. I did enjoy learning about something that I did not know could happen. I was really glad to be able to give Sherman pointers from my research. It really is about helping each other. Without my blogging buddies I would be lost.

I will get over to your blog soon. I am a little slow right now due to offline commitments.

I have not had a blog of mine hacked thankfully but one of the very first php based websites I created was. As it was not database driven it was simple to just upload my backed up version.

It is not so easy to solve with WordPress if you do not have a comprehensive backup plugin installed. My host takes weekly backups of all of my sites and do not charge much if they need to restore them for you. That is added reassurance for me.

Another problem that some people I know have come across is with free themes that have hidden scripts or links included. These particular ones have not been viruses but links that you do not want to be there, which do harm to your site’s search engine reputation I suppose there is a potential for viruses to be added to themes too which makes it important you download them from reputable sources.

I hope I don’t have to use any of the checking and recovery tools you mention but it is good to know about them just in case.Sue Bride recently posted…Bling Your Blog

Yes this is a scary thing to have. A couple of times I wasn’t able to log into my blog. Thankfully, with the help of my host, I was able to use filezilla to deactivate some plugins so I can troubleshoot.

But that wasn’t enough. As you already know I ended up purchasing Sucuri and they did a great job in getting rid of all the malware that was inside my blog. I still wipe my brow after this LOL